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Finally, Truth in Advertising

Consumer Reports is correcting some misleading TV advertisements. This first video deals with "restless leg syndrome", and it's about time. I'm sick of pharmaceutical ads aimed at specific disease that make it seem like we all might have them, while showing drugs that have side effects far worse than the disease itself. Gambling? Intense sexual urges? Whaaa?

They're just side effects, so they must be minor. Drugs can solve everything! Buy more drugs! Maybe we could use them to solve the homeless veteran problem too!

Labels: consumer reports, restless leg syndrom, rls, video

Posted by Mark Monday, November 12, 2007 12:33:00 PM | permalink | (0) comments

Profane Super Mario - I've Heard the Same Things From BI Users

I came across this hilarious, profane 23 minute video walkthrough of a Super Mario Brothers level while browsing for material for a presentation on game mechanics and software design (NSFW without headphones).

My internal dialog when evaluating software is just like this, from the frequent bouts of swearing to the shouts of triumph and shrieks of despair:

"This is worse than reading an RL Stine book. This is worse than reading YouTube comments! This thing sucks donkey ****!"

I've been in the office with a great many very smart, non-IT people using a BI tool for the first time. I see their faces twist and grimace, watch them turn shades of pink, see the sweat bead on their foreheads and drip on their keyboards. I know exactly what they think about the developers at that moment: "They were too busy watching Magnolia and cupping each other's balls."

I review and use a lot of enterprise software and "usability" is not a word I associate with most of it. I provide occasional toned-down feedback to vendors when I really want to track down and throttle the "usability experts" they hired to give them advice, usually people with zero domain expertise. I refrain because I'm afraid of choking off business.

I thought it would be an interesting idea to take this shared pain, go back to things that work and are engaging or infuriating in game design, and bring some of the design lessons to the application audience. Working with software, particularly BI tools, ought to be enjoyable, or at the least satisfying. The one-off mashups done by web 2.0 developers are sometimes a better model for BI than the approach BI vendors are taking today. At least the mashups make looking at data fun.

Addendum: this chart of profanity use by cause

Labels: BI, super mario, usability, video

Posted by Mark Friday, April 20, 2007 6:13:00 PM | permalink | (2) comments